Harry was locally sourcing his food years before chefs in California starting using cilantro and arugula (both of which he hated). For his signature bacon and tomato sandwich, he procured 100% all white Bunny Bread from Georgia, Blue Plate mayonnaise from New Orleans, Sauer's black pepper from Virginia, home grown tomatoes from outside Oxford, and Tennessee's Benton bacon from his bacon-of-the-month subscription. As a point of pride, he purported to remember every meal he had eaten in his 80 years of life.

The women in his life were numerous. He particularly fancied smart women. He loved his mom Wilma Hartzog (deceased), who with the help of her sisters and cousins in New Hebron reared Harry after his father Walter's death when Harry was 12. He worshipped his older sister Lynn Stamps Garner (deceased), a character in her own right, and her daughter Lynda Lightsey of Hattiesburg. He married his main squeeze Ann Moore, a home economics teacher, almost 50 years ago, with whom they had two girls Amanda Lewis of Dallas, and Alison of Starkville. He taught them to fish, to select a quality hammer, to love nature, and to just be thankful. He took great pride in stocking their tool boxes. One of his regrets was not seeing his girl, Hillary Clinton, elected President.

He excelled at growing camellias, rebuilding houses after hurricanes, rocking, eradicating mole crickets from his front yard, composting pine needles, living within his means, outsmarting squirrels, never losing a game of competitive sickness, and reading any history book he could get his hands on. He loved to use his oversized "old man" remote control, which thankfully survived Hurricane Katrina, to flip between watching The Barefoot Contessa and anything on The History Channel. He took extreme pride in his two grandchildren Harper Lewis ( 8 ) and William Stamps Lewis ( 6 ) of Dallas for whom he would crow like a rooster on their phone calls. As a former government and sociology professor for Gulf Coast Community College, Harry was thoroughly interested in politics and religion and enjoyed watching politicians act like preachers and preachers act like politicians. He was fond of saying a phrase he coined "I am not running for political office or trying to get married" when he was "speaking the truth." He also took pride in his service during the Korean conflict, serving the rank of corporal--just like Napolean, as he would say.

Harry took fashion cues from no one. His signature every day look was all his: a plain pocketed T-shirt designed by the fashion house Fruit of the Loom, his black-label elastic waist shorts worn above the navel and sold exclusively at the Sam's on Highway 49, and a pair of old school Wallabees (who can even remember where he got those?) that were always paired with a grass-stained MSU baseball cap.

Harry traveled extensively. He only stayed in the finest quality AAA-rated campgrounds, his favorite being Indian Creek outside Cherokee, North Carolina. He always spent the extra money to upgrade to a creek view for his tent. Many years later he purchased a used pop-up camper for his family to travel in style, which spoiled his daughters for life.

He despised phonies, his 1969 Volvo (which he also loved), know-it-all Yankees, Southerners who used the words "veranda" and "porte cochere" to put on airs, eating grape leaves, Law and Order (all franchises), cats, and Martha Stewart. In reverse order. He particularly hated Day Light Saving Time, which he referred to as The Devil's Time. It is not lost on his family that he died the very day that he would have had to spring his clock forward. This can only be viewed as his final protest.

Because of his irrational fear that his family would throw him a golf-themed funeral despite his hatred for the sport, his family will hold a private, family only service free of any type of "theme." Visitation will be held at Bradford-O'Keefe Funeral Home, 15th Street, Gulfport on Monday, March 11, 2013 from 6-8 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you make a donation to Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College (Jeff Davis Campus) for their library. Harry retired as Dean there and was very proud of his friends and the faculty. He taught thousands and thousands of Mississippians during his life. The family would also like to thank the Gulfport Railroad Center dialysis staff who took great care of him and his caretaker Jameka Stribling.

Finally, the family asks that in honor of Harry that you write your Congressman and ask for the repeal of Day Light Saving Time. Harry wanted everyone to get back on the Lord's Time.

I especially loved these sections: Harry took fashion cues from no one. His signature every day look was all his: a plain pocketed T-shirt designed by the fashion house Fruit of the Loom, his black-label elastic waist shorts worn above the navel and sold exclusively at the Sam's on Highway 49

and

For his signature bacon and tomato sandwich, he procured 100% all white Bunny Bread from Georgia, Blue Plate mayonnaise from New Orleans, Sauer's black pepper from Virginia, home grown tomatoes from outside Oxford, and Tennessee's Benton bacon from his bacon-of-the-month subscription.

Just the thought that someone would have a bacon-of-the-month subscription was just too funny!

Me! Although I've no idea how you'll get pork products past customs in this country but I rely on your ingenuity when you set up my account. You were going to set up a membership for me, right? Right??

Well Mel since you are flying pigs (to Katie) in Georges private jet no less, please stop by my place with a bottle of Casamigos, have a shocker of a flu and Im certain this will cure it, oh yeah a strip of bacon would be nice too.

I know...only in the US right? Yeah, sadly there are many companies that provide Bacon of the Month offerings. My dad's grandsons thought it was the most wonderful present they ever got Granpa. Think maybe my dad did as well. He'd ask us if we wanted a slice of "his bacon" every time we visited. Had no idea there were so many kinds-- single smoked, double smoked, applewood, thick thin...

Katie, I suspect a membership in the Bacon of the Month Club wouldn't be especially popular where you live!

WAAAY OFF TOPIC: Hey girls...we CAN eat bacon according to this new study!

Mother Jones

Science: Beef Good, Bacon Not So BadA new European study claims an increase in processed meat consumption raises the risk of early death. But the real news? Red meat won't kill you.

Earlier this month, researchers announced the results of a big new nutritional study in Europe that seemed to yield more evidence that processed meats like bacon and sausage can lead to an early grave. The media responded with the usual "Death By Salami" headlines. What news outlets downplayed about the study, though, is that despite their best efforts, the EU researchers couldn't find any evidence that red meat will kill you. In fact, the study shows that not eating red meat is a risk factor for an early demise.

After correcting some measurement errors, the researchers in Europe had to conclude that not only was red meat intake "no longer associated with mortality" but "all-cause mortality was higher among participants with very low or no red meat consumption."

The government, public health advocates, and the American Heart Association have long warned Americans that overconsumption of red meat can lead to heart disease and other ailments. Yet the scientific evidence supporting this hypothesis has always been weak. And in fact, this month's study isn't the first to fly in the face of these assumtions. A large study in Japan also found no increase in heart disease deaths from moderate meat consumption as well.

And last year, Harvard researchers published another similar large study. The media reporting on the study declared that researchers had found that "adding an extra portion of unprocessed red meat to someone's daily diet would increase the risk of death by 13%. The figures for processed meat were higher, 20% for overall mortality." But the Harvard data also showed that meat consumption had a protective effect for a lot of people. Up to a certain point, people who ate more of it fared better than those who ate little or none. The source of some of this confusion is simple: People who eat junk food are unhealthy in myriad ways that make it nearly impossible to zero in on a single food item as the source of their health woes.

To see what I mean, let's take a closer look at the EU study. Known as the European Prospective Investigation in Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), it included more than half a million people from 10 European countries, who were queried on a host of different factors, from how much and what they ate to their levels of education, their age, their weight, and whether they'd ever smoked. The study indicated that people who eat a lot of processed meats are also more likely to smoke, eat few fruits and vegetables, and have lower levels of education. They're much fatter and exercise less than the rest of the sample. And men in this category are also serious boozers. Oh, and the heavy meat eaters were older, too—so many of them were well into their 70s by the time they suffered the consequences of too many sausage rolls.

And the people who ate the most processed meat—which the study qualifies as more than 160 grams per day (about six sausage links' worth)—didn't only die of cardiovascular diseases and cancer, the things we associate with a bad diet; they also died of lots of "other causes," a category that includes car crashes, accidental injuries, and other non-food related causes. (The study's big chicken eaters, on the other hand, were the Girl Scouts of the data pool: They don't smoke much, they eat lots of vegetables, exercise, go to college, and no doubt brush their teeth, wear seatbelts, and get regular check-ups.)

"This is like doing a survey about alcoholism and mortality and making the top group so small that it includes Billie Holiday and George Best and making headlines on this basis."

The researchers did try to adjust for the booze and smoking, education, and even sugar consumption, but they couldn't completely factor those things out or there would be very few people left in the study. Out of 127,000 or so male participants, a mere 619 were heavy processed meat eaters who'd never smoked. And as it turns out, the scientists couldn't find a significant association between heavy processed meat consumers and non-smokers, only former or current smokers—a finding they acknowledge is "compatible with residual confounding by smoking." Which begs the question: Is it the bacon or is the cigarettes that's killing these people? Concluding that it's only the bacon that's the culprit here seems like a stretch.

What's more, not even one percent of of the people who died during the 12 years of the study were among those who ate the most processed meat. Zoe Harcombe, a British obesity researcher (and a participant in the EPIC study), points out that the researchers had to group the participants in an unusual way, so that the number of people in the high-processed meat consumption category is very small. (There were so few women in this category that the association with processed meats and mortality wasn't statistically significant for them.) She writes, "This is like doing a survey about alcoholism and mortality and making the top group so small that it includes Billie Holiday and George Best and making headlines on this basis."

Of course there are plenty of good health reasons to avoid processed meats—think pink slime or listeria—not to mention environmental ones like factory farming and climate change. The EU researchers also point to salt, extra fat, and carcinogens like nitrite that are found in processed food as potential culprits that should make any health nut wary. But not all processed meat is created equal, either. The difference between some nice Italian prosciutto and that Spam-like stuff in Lunchables is vast (and perhaps one reason why Italians have a longer life expectancy than Americans).

In the final equation, eating some bacon for breakfast now and then probably isn't going to kill you, and eating a nice (grass-fed) steak once in a while might even extend your life.

Last edited by Lighterside on Mon 18 Mar 2013, 13:39; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : put in the rest of the article)